Trump, Cruz, urge Rubio to quit
Trump’s remarkable rise leaves Republicans in a quandary
With a sweep of at least six Super Tuesday primaries, Donald Trump has moved a step closer to the once unthinkable: winning the Republican presidential nomination.
The party’s belated efforts to thwart his rise — and rally support behind a more palatable candidate such as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio — have, so far, yielded little but a distasteful food fight. Rubio actually finished the evening behind Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who won his home state and Oklahoma.
The situation leaves the party establishment and mainstream down-ballot candidates in a quandary. Do they distance themselves from Trump on the grounds that he could hurt their own chances? Or do they rally around him on the grounds that division within their ranks would only exacerbate their problems?
The temptation will be to do the latter. Republicans have long been a circle-the-wagons party. But that won’t be in the party’s best interests, or the nation’s.
A Trump nomination would not be the first time a party has fielded a flawed, outside-the-mainstream candidate. Republicans did so in 1964 with Barry Goldwater, and Democrats in 1972 with George McGovern. In both cases, the parties lived to fight another day.
But it would be extraordinary for a major party to embrace a dissembling demagogue so temperamentally unsuited for the presidency. Trump’s unworkable call for mass deportations, his repulsive idea of trying to bar entry to all Muslims, and his hesitancy about denouncing racist groups are moral poison for a party that needs to broaden its national appeal.
If he emerges from the splintered field as the nominee, Trump might pick up workingclass voters among Democrats, independents and previous non-voters. But the idea that the GOP can thrive as the white-identity party is wishful thinking.
The best course for most Republicans would be to distance themselves from Trump and to ponder why he has done so well.
For decades, the party has courted working-class voters and stoked their passions. But the GOP has also taken these voters for granted, often focusing on tax and regulatory issues championed by corporate lobbyists. Trump’s populist nationalism has channeled the anger at elites and tapped into the dissatisfaction of those who feel left behind by globalization and social change.
On Super Tuesday, the GOP race officially went from source of entertainment to something much more ominous.